From Howard to Halloween: Richard Christy drafts soundtrack to Blaze

Oct. 3, 2012

Richard Christy, a producer and on-air personality on Howard Stern's radio show on Sirius, created a new soundtrack to help animate the Blaze this year.

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Richard Christy, a producer and on-air personality on Howard Stern’s radio show on Sirius, is also a musician who calls himself “a Halloween fanatic.”

He first learned about The Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze while reading a Halloween message board on the Web.

“Anything to do with pumpkins or Halloween, people email and tell me about them,” he says. “I was familiar with the event for a couple of years before I made it to The Blaze.”

He has been to the Croton pumpkinfest three years running.

“I’ve loved carving pumpkins myself since I was a little kid,” says the Kansas native who lives in Long Island City. “When I heard about this, I said: ‘This sounds like the absolute best thing to do in October’ and, sure enough, it is. I was just blown away. Even in the parking lot, seeing the glow of the whole site, I was starting to get excited, knowing ‘Wow! There’s thousands of glowing pumpkins right over there.’”

“Rob and Michael and I met in April and went through the map of all the installations and the themes and that’s when I started working on the music,” Christy says. “In May, June and July, I was already thinking about Halloween, which was fine by me.”

His score, 50 tracks ranging from “The Dream Maker” to “Flee” to “Electric,” is a whirling mix of keyboards and synthesizer, with wind effects and organ.

Natiello likes what he heard: “Richard created something that wasn’t too much horror, but nothing too cute. His sensibilities were dead on to fit what we do here.”

The Blaze Soundtrack is sold in the gift shop, online at hudsonvalley.org, or get a digital download on iTunes, Amazon and Google Play.